GMB ‘won’t influence’ choice of senate president

President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has said that he is willing to work with any leader of the senate, irrespective of what part of the country he or she hails from.

In a statement released in Abuja on Wednesday, Buhari described as false, insinuations in the media that he was in support of any particular senator’s emergence as leader or that he belonged to any camp pushing for the emergence of a leader from a particular part of the country.

“I am prepared to work with any leaders that the house or senate selects,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter who the person is or where he or she is from.”

He added that these insinuations were probably born out of people’s expectations based on the way things had happened in the past, but reminded Nigerians that change had truly come.

“There is due process for the selection of leaders of the national assembly,” Buhari said, “and I will not interfere in that process.”

He added that the media and the public should begin to get used “to no more business as usual”.

“Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation,” he said. “My administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous governments.”

TheCable had reported that the president’elect would not intervene in the emergence of the senate president and speaker of the federal house of representatives.

“My sense is that Buhari does not want to be called a dictator because that was the tag his opponents have put on him since he started bidding for presidency in 2003,” one of his associates had told TheCable.

“Over the years, the unfortunate characterisation of Buhari has mellowed him down and you can now see him doing things he normally would not do.”

The battle for the senate presidency looks a two-way battle between Ex-governor Bukola Saraki (Kwara) from the north-central and Ahmed Lawan (Yobe) from the north-east, while Femi Gbajabiamila (Lagos), the current the minority leader and Abdulmumin Jibril (Kano) are known to be interested in the speakership of the federal house of representatives.